Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol.
This was before the Obama surge, before he had omnipresent Secret Service agents, back when you might see him strolling solo.
We chatted for a second, mainly about the Pakistan speech he’d recently given and about how the media had covered it. He was in good spirits.
As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of smell and immediately I smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes.
Obama ran off before I could ask him if he’d just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign.
They denied it. He’d quit months before, in February, they insisted. He chewed nicorette.
But I knew what I’d smelled and I asked his campaign to double-check and to ask him if he’d had a cigarette.
They reported back that he had told them he hadn’t had a cigarette since he quit.
And maybe that was true. Maybe I imagined the cigarette smoke. My olfactory nerve somehow misfired.
Except….last night on MSNBC’s Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not been entirely successful.
“I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on,” he said. “But it is a struggle like everything else.”
Now I wonder about last August.
It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things — the war on Iraq, a major economic crisis — indeed, it’s miniscule. Hardly worth mentioning.
Except that I don’t like feeling that I wasn’t being dealt with honestly. And as much as citizens who are suspect of the media might scoff at such a notion, many of us consider ourselves to be your representatives to help make sure our leaders are telling us the truth, and leading the country down a path we’re confident is the right one. (Corny, I know.)
We are still unpacking the memos written by Bush’s henchman that paved the way for torture, and a member of our media has his panties in a knot because a candidate may have been less than candid to him about smoking a legal substance. Where was this fucking spidey sense the past eight years?
As someone who took ten years to finally quit smoking, and still, to this day, keeps a box of Nicorette in the cabinet, Jake Tapper can go piss off. After the lawyers, I say we kill the media.
*** Update ***
I had to dash this post off in a fit of rage before heading to the panel I discuss in the next post, and it appears I forgot to note why this tapper dribble pisses me off so much (aside from the obvious reasons). Tapper feels like Obama lied to him, and feels bad because he “wasn’t dealt with honestly,” and he HAS NO FUCKING REASON TO FEEL THAT WAY. He made any dishonesty up in his head.
He says himself he did not ask Obama. He asked the campaign, who more than likely had no idea if Obama had had a cigarette right before he talked to Tapper. They responded like any staff would- no, he isn’t smoking, he is chewing Nicorette. Then a year later, when Obama is asked directly, he responds that yes, he has slipped from time to time.
Rather than be dishonest, as Tapper is portraying Obama, he is being honest and forthright on the issue, and Tapper gets sand in the vajayjay anyway. It is mind-numbing. How does this guy have a fucking job working for a major news organization?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Amen!
BH Buck
Somewhat related to the post….
I quit smoking nearly five weeks ago. Did it cold turkey. (Someone told me that the gum and patches tend to keep you ‘hooked’ on nicotine). Whether true or not, I’m off of them.
*pats self on the back here*
Dulcie
If it’s not worth mentioning, why are you mentioning it Jake?
Asshole.
tBone
Frankly, I’m surprised you aren’t taking this more seriously. This isn’t a little white lie, or an innocuous misstatement about coming under sniper fire. No, this is serious, and raises very serious questions about what else Obama is lying about. If you don’t take it seriously, you’re not a serious person. Seriously.
We as Americans deserve a leader who doesn’t sneak smokes and then fib about it, and who is a decent bowler. I don’t think that’s asking too much.
John Cole
Although you are snarking, Tbone, it isn’t even a lie, which makes it more frustrating.
He never asked Obama if he had sneaked a cigarette. He asked the campaign, who just assumed he had not and was chewing nicorette. In fact, the only time he was asked about it, last night on Hardball, he was… honest.
In other words, Jake Tapper is bent out of shape for Obama’s alleged dishonesty when Obama was perfectly HONEST.
Kill them all. Every fucking last one of them.
Cris
What a busybody. Frankly, I see nothing concerning or surprising when somebody who is trying to quit, who gets called on it by a stranger, denies it. It’s not like Tapper is a grand jury.
afferent input
Guess what? Get used to this F-ing shit. The media will let GOPers do anything they want. Spy on Americans without a warrant, lie about WMD, steal from the Treasury, give no-bid contracts to buddies, perform bizarre legal gymnastics to justify torture, and on, and on… The media doesn’t care about any of that.
But a Dem will be in the whitehouse next year, and you can bet your bottom dollar the media will regain their journalistic integrity. In fact, Obama won’t be able to wipe his ass without having a journalist ask him about it.
afferent input
Ugh. didn’t close my bold. oops.
jake
OMG! HE HAD A SMOKE TO COVER THE SMELL OF CRACK AND SPUNK!1
I don’t suppose I could force that putz to change his name.
Jesus F. Christ:
Boo fucking hoo. Hizzums is so upset he’s got double-negativeitis. Does he have an assistant wheel him around after with a fainting couch?
I guess it would never occur to M. Tapthreetimes that Obama’s team didn’t know he was (shock horrors call the police!) smoking again. I’ve worked in the same place for nearly eight years and there are still lots of co-workers who don’t know I smoke.
Plus I thought the nitwits of the media had established that smelling like tobbacco smoke is a good thing?
Just Some Fuckhead
Serious people want to know what brand Obama smoked and if he turned one upside down when he opened a new pack.
Pb
Also…
So did I, whenever I hung out with friends that smoked, and/or went to an establishment where they’d smoke. Shocking, I know. Call me quick, Jake Tapper, I’ll give you an exclusive all about it!
pessullivan
I say first we get the lawyers to figure out how to make it legal to kill the media. Then we figure out how to go after the lawyers.
Dulcie
Does he pack them before he smokes? Does he use matches or a lighter? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Just Some Fuckhead
Teh Google indicates Marlboro. I was a little worried it was Kool or Newport and we’d have another tooblackness scandal on our hands.
BH Buck
I’ll admit I just glanced through the article first time around. Upon re-reading, Jake Tapper is a f*cking joke!
I assume most people are aware that if you stand close to a smoker(s) for any length of time, you are going to smell like a smoker.
Tapper is pissed because Obama could possibly have thrown him a bone and didn’t.
Velvet Elvis
If there was a way to come clean with the American people and still lie to his wife, I’m sure he’d have done it.
Zyban works btw.
James Aloezos
If you wanted to kill all the lawyers then your boy glennzilla would be dead. Now if you are talking about Bush Administration lawyers, count me in.
Velvet Elvis
Jeb Bartlett lied quiting smoking too. That makes it 100% OK.
Just Some Fuckhead
I suspect this is clever strategy to boost his cred before the primary in Marlboro country on May 6.
Loviatar sock puppeting for "F"
.
Nahhh cigarettes are the white man’s game, being too black is when he whips out the Chew Stick
Dulcie
It’s probably Marlboro menthol. You know how “those people” are.
BH Buck
Tapper should spend some time investigating GW’s apparent falling off of the wagon.
cbear
Fixt.
jake
Paging John Yoo! Paging Mr. John Torture Yoo!
Cris
I don’t know what’s more ridiculous here, the self-importance or the complete lack of self-awareness.
Zifnab
You have to read the subtext, John. I actually ran into Jake Tapper and I’ve got a funny little anecdote of my own.
Those McCain-style ribs are fucking fantastic.
Zifnab
Or cbear could beat me to it, and pitch the balls a bit harder across the plate.
Scott H
I am back on the patch after I was just going to have “a couple” of good cigars while I was in Florida. It took me two years to get quit of cigarettes after smoking for, well, just about as many years as our host John Cole has been in this world. Fool, me.
If anybody deserves to sneak a smoke it is Barack Obama. The Secret Service is asking for more money for candidate coverage, and we’re at the 40th anniversay of the murder of Martin Luther King (April 4) and near enough to the murder of Robert Kennedy (June 6).
Jake Tapper will have to be left to explain just exactly what his point was.
Dug Jay
Only if you start with Olbermann and Matthews.
Zifnab
I’ll start with Nancy Grace and Tim Russert. And if you are honestly still convinced that Chris Matthews is a “liberal”, you’ve never seen him try to shove a gram of pure Fred Thompson Aqua Velva up his nose or give post-indictment Tom DeLay a blow job in the dressing room.
BH Buck
LOL @ cbear!
NR
I’m reminded of this exchange from The West Wing:
Ted
I agree. The media first; they’re worse for the country.
That was damn funny, mainly because I hadn’t thought about that, then realized it would have been ENTIRELY plausible for that to have occurred. Sad, actually.
BH Buck
Tapper could write about the outrages of most any republican over the last ten-twelve years… but chose not to.
I think that’s all that needs to be said.
frogspawn
Cris, I think it’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other. This guy sounds like he’s gone through life with an 8-gauge mop handle shoved up his ass.
Ted
They actually charge the candidate’s campaign for that? I thought it was tax-payer provided. Maybe only once the primaries are settled?
Pb
Hey Tapper, I’ve got another scoop for you — apparently one of Hillary’s role-models was her slumlord grandmother, Hannah Jones Rodham:
trollhattan
Boy I must be out of it, as I had to look up who the hell Jake Tapper was. “Senior Washington correspondent”? Nobody born in ’69 is senior anything. But hey, he also draws cartoons!
Keep sniffin’, Jake, the people need your nose out there finding the important senior-type stuff.
Mark
It’s possible that no one is shading the truth here. Obama has admitted that he’s fallen off the wagon at times and the staffer who JT talked to may not have known that at the time. But JC’s point is the important one here; next we’ll find out he sneaks the tootsie roll pops out of his kids Halloween candy.
Just Some Fuckhead
Apples don’t fall too far from the tree.
Scott H
@Ted: I assume the taxpayer is footing the Secret Service bill. What startles me is that they are concerned about the coverage they are able to give.
frogspawn
I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag,
I was schooled with a strap right across my back,
But it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas!
But it’s all right, I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash,
It’s a gas! Gas! Gas!
tBone
I think I speak for America when I say: QUIT FUCKING HELPING US.
Ninerdave
ABC News is a joke. Used to be my go to place for news. Not anymore.
Any network that replaces Ted Koppel with Martin Bashir obviously isn’t serious about news. Really have to tried to watch Nightline?
p.lukasiak
I agree with Cole on this one.
I mean, it would be easy, were I actually a Hilbot, to point Obama’s continued smoking as just one more indication that the man is a big fat phony, that’s he all talk, and that he only tells the truth when he has to.
But since I’m not a Hilbot, I’m not going to do that.
tBone
The issue is not that anyone is shading the truth; the issue is that Jake Tapper is a self-important fuckstain who wasted several hundred perfectly good words relating a story that is so goddamn inane and meaningless that any half-decent high school newspaper would reject it.
BH Buck
-Obama may or may not have slipped a cigarette.
-Richardson may or may not have promised to endorse Obama.
-Superdelegates are discussing Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, and how it may effect his elect-ability.
All the crap this republican administration has pulled on us during the course of the last 7-and-a-half years, and this is the news I see being reported.
Fu(king pathetic.
BH Buck
Odd. I didn’t do a strike through… but there it is.
John, something screwy going on, bud.
Ted
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. From everything I’ve read and otherwise learned about the Secret Service protection units, they won’t tolerate their reputation being damaged again if it can be helped (after such problems as JFK, Ford, Reagan, etc).
leinie
Jeebus Fucking Crist on a pogo stick. This is too stupid for words.
The BBQ-eating-goat-blower talks about his “duty” to make sure he’s being told the truth?
Tapper, if you finally fucking figured out that is your job, head on over to the White House. There is a metric buttload of lying going on over there. Here’s a hint. Start with WMDs, move to missing e-mails, politicization of the justice department, and illegal wiretaps. You might make a stop by torture, while you’re at it.
After that, you can start on John McCain’s campaign finance illegalities, then move to the undue influence of lobbyists.
Then, if you have any time left before retirement, you can fucking look into the grand dishonesty of whether or not your sensitive “reporter’s nose” has discovered something about Obama and a furtive cigarette – which, btw, isn’t illegal in this country.
What a fuckhead.
Zuzu
Oh my God, Tapper doesn’t even bother to read the OLD NEWS !!!!!
Fox News was reporting this in January 2007, and even then it was OLD NEWS!!!
John S.
As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of dishonesty and immediately I smelled bulshit on you. Frankly, you reek of it.
Jon H
Maybe Obama was just talking to smokers? Or visiting a smoker in his office?
Jake Tapper, sooper-investigator.
Ted
We all have our vices, every last one of us, EXCEPT for Pluck, who has none. But the candidate he works for (Hillary) has a husband whose vice was causing him to come dangerously close to lard-ass status for many years. Then they had to saw his chest open to fix some shit he caused.
Hey pluck? Are you aware that the reigning consensus here is that you’re a raging asshole? Yet you come back so often.
Fritz
Shocked, I’m shocked he still smokes! Can he be prosecuted?
On the plus side, just maybe he’ll be up at 3 am having a smoke when the call comes in, if he’s elected.
Ted
Jake Tapper is the Andrew Sullivan of the DC press. He’s about 6 months to a year behind on lots of things.
Zuzu
Okay, I see where he supposedly quite smoking in February 2007.
Teeny voice: nevermind.
Dennis - SGMM
BWAHAHAHAHA! You’re becoming a parody of yourself.
Ninerdave
Buck. I believe short hand for strike through is two dashes.
Conservatively Liberal
I am a double smoker, cigs and ganja (Oregon Medical Marijuana certificate holder). If they legalize ganja, I may quit smoking cigs as I mostly do so to cover the smell of the other…lol
Not something that the cigarette lobby wants to hear. ;)
I have quit a couple of times, once for just over a year, but I always seem to make my way back to it. I have tried Zyban (allergic to), patches (irritate skin like hell), gum (not enough ‘oomph’), several other prescription methods and cold turkey.
I can sympathize with Obama or anyone else who is trying to quit. It is kind of like drinking, you really never quit, you stop. And it is damn easy to start up again. This ‘story’ is a waste of the reporters time. Maybe they are trying to say ‘Obama is weak willed’ or something like that. If so, I am not impressed.
Conservatively Liberal
Hey! I smoke Kool. Are you telling me that I have some brotha in me? Cool! I still can’t jump though. ;)
Fixed.
Fixed. /barf
Ted
Hell, if a stiff drink would have allowed Bush to step back and re-think the whole topple-Saddam-thing, I’d have rolled a wheeled wet bar to his desk myself in a heartbeat. It really couldn’t have made anything worse.
Keith
Interesting…I’ve never heard of tobacco described as a “weed”. Normally, I wouldn’t read much into Tapper’s phrasing, but looking at the profession the guy’s in and how many of his peers have conducted themselves, I do have a suspicion about him trying to allude to Obama’s teen years.
Just Some Fuckhead
I was going to wait until Obama’s big speech on smoking before talking so openly about America’s awful tobacco heritage.
But here it is: I smoked for 15 years because it made me look cool. I quit when cigarettes got up to $3/pack because counting out pennies to buy cigarettes made me look not cool.
Now I only want a cigarette when I have a beer, which is roughly every thirteen minutes on a good night.
Let the healing began.
Wilfred
To paraphrase Chesterton on journalism: blogging is telling the reader that someone he never heard of is an asshole.
My quit was 2 years ago this May 22. Did it on my younger daughter’s birthday, after 30+ years of 3+ packs a day- starting with robbing my father’s Old Gold non-filters and loosie Lucky Strike, then 2 decades of Camel regular and the last ten years Drum. It is fucking tough but worth it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Where did my fucking bulletpoints go??? John! There is something seriously going wrong here!!!
JenJen
Jakey Tapper published, then deleted my comment about Laura Bush and her notorious smoking of legal tobacco.
Just sayin’. :-)
p.lukasiak
obviously, someone didn’t get the “irony is not, in fact, dead” memo..
Dennis - SGMM
Irony requires a certain amount of intellect as well as the ability to see both sides of a situation. your long record leads to the inevitable conclusion that you aren’t packing the gear.
Enceladus
What the hell is with all these journalists who uncritically adopt that politically tainted word “surge”?
Ted
Hey, this one works better than the old one I had installed.
ThymeZone
I almost can’t believe anyone would write such treacle as Tapper’s piece.
But, this is America, where anybody who can comb his hair and type three sentences can apparently be a pundit or get on tv or write a column.
Remind never to take anything this asshole says seriously, again, under any circumstances.
Oh, and I quit smoking going on 3 years ago and I must have failed at least 200 times over the years. It’s a god-awful addiction.
This is a repost, the story of which will be on my forthcoming autobio miniseries.
Dennis - SGMM
So, who plays TZ? I’m guessing George Clooney.
Dug Jay
Nah. I’m guessing Charles Durning.
Davis X. Machina
Tapper can’t get his assignment editor to let him cover the beat he really wants: Jake Tapper.
So he gets as close as he can to it while ‘covering’ politics.
Svensker
Lessee, Obama may have lied about sneaking a cigarette, and he’s a pantywaist bowler. OMG -let’s investigate, he’s prolly unfit for the presidency!!!!!
Dubya. Torture, WMD, spying, Katrina, EPA, AGs, booze, dope, skipping out of Guard duty, etc., etc. Yawn. Great guy. Bestest preznit evah maybe.
slippy hussein toad
This is how pathetic things are. The media literally cannot get anything to stick to Obama. The GOP can’t get anything to stick. Clinton can’t get anything to stick. They’ve got to go after the most miniscule of his flaws and BLOW IT INTO A GIGANTIC BUBBLE THAT’S ALL GROSS AND STICKY AND YOU CAN’T IGNORE IT BECAUSE IT’S JUST SO FUCKING HUGE.
So, John. Who do we start with? I’m with you. I FUCKING HATE the media. They are only useful as fertilizer.
cleek
there are a bunch of secret markup shortcuts and anti-HTML devices at work here. they don’t show up in preview, either.
flyerhawk
Apparently Jake is trying to become Maureen Dowd’s heir apparent.
This article is so stoopit I can’t even get worked up over it.
Tapper seems to be in the bag for Hillary. I’ll prefer this sort of silliness over Krugman’s “While Hillary and Obama have essentially the same plan, Obama’s is terrible and Hillary’s is great” bullshit. At least Tapper’s article will only impress the utterly mindless, and they are probably voting McCain anyway.
cleek
nah. his thing is this gossipy insidy stuff.
he’s been on Obama’s side before.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Jeepers people! You missed the point entirely
(no thanks to Tapper who buried the lead).
Why didn’t Obama’s staff catch the overpowering smell of fresh smokes on him, if it was so obvious? Riddle me that one huh?
Can’t you see it – Obama’s entire staff has undergone olfactory neuteration. They can’t smell a thing.
Why is that? Huh?
Why would a presidential candidate surround himself with people who have no sense of smell? Something very sinister is at the bottom of this.
We can’t take the risk that the smoking smell might be a cloud of mushrooms.
Tax Analyst
Maybe Tapper’s column was an April Fool’s joke. At any rate the upshot of this momentous revelation (that Tapper is apparently a twisted fetishist who walks around sniffing at the undershorts or other clothing of Presidential candidates) is that it removes any need for anyone to ever take Jake Tapper seriously again.
I used to think he had some credibility in journalism, but it seems I was sadly mistaken. Well, shame on me – won’t happen again.
Could he have picked a LESS significant item to consider as a measure of someone’s credibility?
OH…WAIT! I KNOW – what if Obama’s sneaking a smoke when that 3am phone call comes in? He might drop it in a panic and the whole damn White House could burn down.
jake
PotD!
I bet he practices his interviews in the mirror and winds up gazing in adoration for hours. Verily, he is the male version of the bubble-headed bleach blonde who comes on at five.
And many of us consider you a pompous twat. I bet other reporters would agree.
The first I heard of J.T. was courtesy of S,N!. He Santorumed the canine over a very straight-forward, could-only-misunderstand-if-you-were-brain-dead-or-lying, statement by Bill Clinton. Call me old fashioned but I don’t see the point of reporters who can neither read nor listen.
Zuzu
I dunno. Don’t forget this classic:
MMFA
ThymeZone
Nobody. TZ is a persona, a fictional character.
The person who writes TZ will be played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.
BH Buck
Ninerdave, I believe that’s what happened. I wasn’t aware there were shortcuts though. My post at 5:46pm, which ended with “pats self on the back here”, was supposed to be surrounded with asterisks. Instead, it became bold text.
leinie (at 7:01pm), most excellent post! Nail on the head.
Paul Weimer
Strangely enough, the one time I recall hearing that was on the old Battlestar Galactica, when a fellow pilot chided Starbuck for smoking cigars. He described it as a “weed”.
Tsulagi
Not only is it proven Obama is possibly less than forthcoming fully chronicling his nicotine addiction, has he spoken yet of his potential collusion in the desire to kill white babies? Or is that also something not yet fully disclosed? Inquiring minds at RedState are on the hunt…
Obama donors debated Killing White Babies and Trained in Castros Terrorist camps. VIDEO and link to 420 pages FBI Files
The title alone of that RS recommended diary is just an awesome display of wingnuttery. As is the diary itself.
Zuzu
Scrolling…scrolling…scrolling…trying to find out the connection between all these eveldoars and Obama.
Finally:
Ayers donated $200 to Obama’s state Senate campaign in 2001.
Seriously.
Holds sides laughing.
tBone
There might be something to this. Last time I spoke to Obama, I immediately smelled baby on his breath. Frankly, he reeked of freshly-eaten infant.
Thank God RedState is on the case.
Jen
Cubesteak, is there a Cannibal Diaries of Barack Obama in you, just dying to get out?
tBone
Crusty Dem
Like all media fools, Tapper believes that a single anecdote gives him unique insight into the character of the candidate. This combination of wretched self-importance and patent idiocy is one reason why McCain gets glowing coverage; He tells the media exactly what they want to hear (that they’re awesome and brilliant and he wishes he were one of them).
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with relating the anecdote, but to use it to impugn Obama’s (and his campaign’s) honesty is just dumb, particularly after Obama admits to lapses. Also, who the fuck cares.
Garrigus Carraig
Go sh. (The latter is an hilarious & excellent book btw.)
rachel
Obama is OMGmeen to reporters too. (Well, this reporter says Obama yelled at him.)
The Other Steve
It’s funny. Obama supposedly lied.
But if any of us ever says Bush lied about WMDs, oh man do we get our toes roasted about how out of line we are on that one.
you know, because, well, one is important.
jake
To: John Cole
Subject: Request for Assistance witth Important Business Transaction.
I got to know of you in my search for a reputable person/Company to assist in an urgent business deal requiring utmost trust and confidentiality. I have need for a reliable and trustworthy foreign partner who will help receive some funds which I have in cash totaling US $50.5m, in addition to the last honest and fully functional media in the world.
Anybody who will be willing to render this tremendous assistance will recieve 20% of the total sum, plus the last honest and fully functional media in the world. This is negotiable if you are interested. Note that this transaction involves no risks of whatsoever…
p.lukasiak
y’know what? You can laugh all you want to, but when the National Enquirer has copies of their magazine prominently displayed in every supermarket, Walmart, and convenience store checkout counter, and the “above the masthead” story being promoted is a picture of Obama next to the words “DESTROY ALL WHITE PEOPLE”, it doesn’t matter how “wingnutty” something is, you’ve got a problem.
Most people will just see the headline — and be influenced by it. And most of the people who read the Enquirer aren’t exactly experts on parsing a smear — they’ll think there is actually something relevant to the Obama – Wright – Cone – Farrakhan connection.
So while you blithely canter about on your Pony, tens of millions of Americans are getting the dog-whistle message “Obama hates white people.”
It doesn’t matter if its bullshit — the same dynamic that allows the NUPpets to see everything about Clinton in the most sinister terms is going to come into play if Obama gets the nomination. The people who will believe this crap about Obama are just like you…. it doesn’t matter how stupid something is, all it takes is a willingness to belive that its true.
flyerhawk
So Obama is unelectable because the National Enquirer will smear him?
Did the National Enquirer also claim that Hillary murdered Vince Foster along with about a dozen other smears?
People that are willing to believe that Obama wants to kill white people probably weren’t voting for him EVER.
This is a particularly desperate line of reasoning from Hillary supporters. Don’t nominate Obama because the GOP will be mean to him. The primary complaint from the Hillary campaign for the past 2 months is how unfair the race has been yet we are to believe she is the one who is tested and ready to run against the GOP. Uh, sure.
Phoebe
Demographically speaking, smoking and struggling with it can only help him in Pennsylvania.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Yup, I’m convinced. Time to switch over to supporting Hillary. These publications would never stoop so low as to print anything similarly stupid, unfounded and damaging about a politician named Clinton. Chalk up a major advantage for HRC.
The people who will believe this crap about Obama are just like you…. it doesn’t matter how stupid something is, all it takes is a willingness to belive that its true.
pluk, are you testifying from personal experience here?
Are you trying to tell us that people who get their information from supermarket tabloids and believe everything they read are just like pluk? Because that would explain a lot, actually.
How is BatBoy doing, by the way?
ThymeZone
So, lukasiak, after all this time, it turns out that your whole message actually is:
Don’t nominate the negro. The negro can’t get elected.
That’s about it, right? That’s the sum and substance of your whole schtick here the last few months? America isn’t ready to elect a negro president.
Sorry, no sale. I think Barack Obama is clearly the best candidate, and clearly the best choice for Democrats to win in November. I am not afraid of the mean Republicans.
I am ashamed to share a party with you, though.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
That really is the core difference between the campaigns, isn’t it?
From what I can tell, it breaks very strongly along generational lines. Democrats who are young enough such that their experience under Bush dominates their thinking about the GOP aren’t afraid. They can sense that W has done everything possible to break the back of the GOP.
There also seem to be a bunch of us MUPpet geezers who still remember the pre-Reagan GOP of Goldwater, Nixon and Ford, and who aren’t afraid either.
Hillary’s core group seems to be the Dems whose outlook was shaped by the beatdowns administered by the GOP during the 1980’s and 90’s. Their attitude towards the GOP is “please don’t hit me again! I’ll be good, I promise”.
shera
You must be trying to reason with yourself, because that’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve seen in a while, and I read your comments on this blog everyday. Did you know that the CEO of the National Enquirer formerly served in the Clinton administration and is a big supporter of Clinton’s campaign?
Nice to know you think the ambitions of black people should be held hostage to the whims of “tens of millions of Americans” who can’t resist the pull of the racist dogwhistle. I’m sure if John Calhoun were alive, he’d have your back.
J. Michael Neal
You’re just figuring this out now? I’ve known this for twenty-five years, which is, I think, before they even hired Jake Tapper.
As I said in the thread above this, I was raised in academia. In fact, my father was the guy that ABC News hired in the wake of the controversy over whether their early projection of the 1980 presidential election affected voting on the west coast. They hired him to conduct the study over whether it was true. In my family, it is suspected that they chose him because he was already on the record as being of the opinion that it had no effect.
One of the reasons I respect my father so highly is that, once he had actually conducted the study, he came to the conclusion that he had been wrong. The early projection did cause a statistically significant proportion of the population on the west coast to not go vote. My father has the intellectual honesty to admit when his assumptions are wrong. As soon as he had written this up, ABC News leaned on him to squelch the study. That wasn’t the answer they wanted.
My father pointed them to the contract they had signed. Unlike a lot of people getting paid by someone, my father had stipulated that, even though ABC was paying for the study, *he* was the only one who controlled the use of the findings. The study was duly published, though ABC went to court to prevent it. The judge laughed at them.
ABC News is a joke. It has always been a joke. The best part of the joke, which has relevance whenever anyone brings up the early projection of Florida in 2000, is that it was Republicans on the west coast in 1980 who were the ones who decided to not go and vote. It is the apparent winners (i.e. Al Gore in 2000) who decide not to vote.
TenguPhule
I think Olbermann should be allowed to beat Dug Jay to death on television.
Then get rid of the lawyers who are Republican.
And finally, the media that sucks Republican dick.
Then we can start on the Anthropod Democrats.
TenguPhule
I would like to point out that only one candidate pays their fucking bills on time.
And it isn’t Hillary.
J. Michael Neal
There are also a few of us who vaguely remember the pre-Reagan GOP of Nelson Rockefeller, and are happy to imagine ourselves belonging to that party. The fact that it bears no resemblance to the Republican Party that we have experienced over the last two decades only makes us more bitter.
My father says that his problem with the current GOP is that, if a Republican is going to get basic economics wrong, what purpose do they have in life? I point out that, for most of my life, the GOP hasn’t gotten basic economics right, so I have trouble figuring out what the value of them is.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I hope someday we can have 2 sane political parties, but at least for right now I’d be willing to settle for 1 if it can win some elections.
For what its worth, I’ve been peddling a theory on this blog for a couple of months now that the trip which today’s GOP took to crazytown really got going in earnest about the time that the USSR fell, and that this is no coincidence.
So would it be fair to say that the difference on this issue between you and your dad is that he wants to value the current GOP using mark-to-model and you are insisting on mark-to-market?
Conservatively Liberal
Well, the Clinton campaign has started up the engines on the motorized goalposts (yet again). Remember it was said that Hillary needed a blowout in PA to stay in the race? Not any more.
So now it is a ‘fair race’ ‘absent the resource differential’? In other words, it is unfair now that Obama is focusing on PA? So now, because of Obama’s 6 day tour and his outspending her, Obama has to win PA? Otherwise, no matter how small of a margin Hillary wins it by, she is good to go?
Shit, and they say the Obama supporters are drinking koolaid. The Clinton campaign must be downing it with beer bongs.
p.lukasiak
Well, the GOP embraced “crazy” when it nominated Reagan, who was literally a B-movie version of Jimmy Stewart. He governed like the world was a Stewart movie…. Its a Wonderful Life told you everything you need to know about economics, Mr Smith Goes to Washington was his version of political reality, and Strategic Air Command defined the military.
But you may be right in one sense…. while the GOP embraced Reagan, it didn’t embrace “crazy” until later. But I don’t think it was because fall of the wall, but because of George Bush I’s loss to Bill Clinton. The lesson taken away from Reagan’s political success and GHWB’s defeat was “crazy works, sane doesn’t”.
flyerhawk
Conservatively Liberal,
The funny part is that they make the argument that PA is unfair because Obama has so much more money but they also argue that Florida was completely fair even though Hillary had vastly more name recognition going into the primary than Obama.
Their willingness to use ANY rationalization is truly impressive, in a sad pathetic sort of way.
JackieBinAZ
Nothing screams credibility like the National Enquirer…
Except someone citing it as an influential source.
Thanks for the good laugh.
BH Buck
I think the laugh is on you, Jack. Sadly, people ARE influenced by that rag.
grandpajohn
Nah Jake, don’t break your fucking hand patting your self on the back, most of us gave up on the delusional thought that the media assholes like you ever had the integrity or fortitude to ever be honest reporters of factual news or have any idea of what truth really is.
Conservatively Liberal
We buy the National Enquirer only when we go camping, it makes for great campfire stories and fire starting material. Other than wiping with it in a pinch, there is no other value to it. I do believe that some people read and believe what it says, but most of them are the dead-enders who support Bush. They are batshit insane already, so no loss there.
I have yet to meet anyone who takes that rag (and others like it) seriously, and if I ever do I will laugh derisively at them for hours.
flyerhawk, if this primary was laid out on a football field, Obama would have his 50 yards to guard, and Hillary would just keep moving the goalposts so Obama ends up running 5,000 yards to score. That would make a good cartoon, Obama driving towards the end zone, and Hillary driving off with it while cackling her head off.
While I like Obama getting toughened up, this mess can’t end soon enough for me. Hillary and her supporters are turning in to Fox News & Hannity loving wingnuts. In some ways, I hope Obama can win it without some of her more rabid supporters. The Democratic party will only get better with them gone.
Original Lee
Geek alert: I was re-reading some Terry Pratchett last night, and I found the perfect quote for the Clinton campaign:
“Upon my oath, I am not a lying man, sir, but I look at Lieutenant Blouse in wonderment.”
/geek
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
The GOP started down the road to crazy when they welcomed the racists, bigots and haters into the party starting in ’68.
The former Dixiecrats took over around Reagan’s time… and madness followed.
Brachiator
Talk radio host Stephanie Miller attended the Clinton fund raiser in Beverly Hills on Thursday evening. She noted that host Rob Reiner was insisting that Hillary would accrue more popular votes than Obama by the time of the Puerto Rico primary, and thus conclusively demonstrate that her nomination reflects the will of the voters.
Oh, hell yes.
I also caught a bit of Senator Clinton on the Tonight Show going on again about how only she could bring hope, dignity and a new morning to all those otherwise disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan.
Cris
cbear is August Pollak?
cbear
I’ve been plager..er..rized.
Steve V
One of the thousand little cuts of “character” drivel the mainstream media seems to like putting out about Democratic candidates. It’s enough to make you think that Somerby guy might be on to something.